BGSQD

Let's Read: Pray The Gay Away
2018-04-22 15:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join Michael and Zach Zakar for a reading and signing from their new book Pray the Gay Away
Copies of Pray the Gay Away are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you! The Zakar twins will happily sign your copy.

“Mom knows.” A simple text that would change two twin brothers’ lives forever. Coming out is hard. The struggle is ongoing, a daily part of life whether to a new friend, a co-worker, or most importantly yourself. Pray the Gay Away chronicles Michael and Zach as they face awkward sexual encounters, drug-fueled escapades, coming out to each other, and their biggest foe – Mom, a woman who gave birth to what she calls not just one regret – but two. The memoir hilariously and poignantly explores what it’s like growing up as gay, Iraqi twins in modern America. Pray the Gay Away was inspired the night Mom snuck into their bedroom and force fed them “holy grapes,” determined to “de-gay” them. The Zakar Twins are new voices speaking out against generations, particularly within the Iraqi culture, who look down on being gay. This book is not only for the LBGTQ community, but for young adults, looking to achieve normalcy.

Patty Schemel Discusses and Reads from her Memoir, HIT SO HARD
2018-04-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Patty Schemel reads and discusses her recent memoir HIT SO HARD, described as a “stunningly candid and inspiring memoir of recovery from addiction and the ’90s.”

Patty Schemel was a drummer at the epicenter of the Seattle grunge scene in the early ’90s, best known for her work with the alternative rock band Hole.

Copies of Hit So Hard are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Photograph by Darcy Hemley.https://darcyhemley.com
Hit So Hard begins with stories from a childhood informed by the AA meetings Schemel’s parents hosted in the family living room. Their divorce triggered her rebellious adolescence and first forays into drinking at age 11, which coincided with her passion for punk rock and playing drums. Her efforts to come to terms with her sexuality further drove her memorably hard playing, and by the late ’80s Schemel was performing regularly in well-regarded bands in Tacoma, Seattle, and Olympia. She met Kurt Cobain at a Melvins show, pre-Nirvana, and less than five years later she would be living with him and his wife, Hole front-woman Courtney Love, at the height of his fame and on the cusp of hers. As Hole’s new drummer, Schemel contributed memorable, driving drum parts to hits like “Beautiful Son,” “Violet,” “Doll Parts,” and “Miss World.” But the band was plagued by tragedy and addiction, and by the time Hole went on tour in support of their ironically titled and critically acclaimed album Live Through This in 1994, both Cobain and Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff were dead at age 27.

With surprising candor and wit, Schemel intimately documents the events surrounding her exit from the band in 1998 that lead to her dramatic descent into a life of homelessness and crime on the streets of Los Angeles and the difficult but rewarding path to sobriety after over twenty serious attempts to get clean. Hit So Hard chronicles the extraordinary coming of age of a musician and an addict during the last great era of rock ‘n’ roll excess.

Office Hours Spring Showcase Reading
2018-04-20 19:00 - 20:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Check out sizzling new writing at the Office Hours Spring Showcase! The workshop provides post-MFA poets access to continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing, culminating in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase stellar new work. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are woman-identified. Our name derives from our side hustle. Many of us are freelance, adjunct instructors, who continue to thrive in the margins of academia.

Featuring: Marty Correia, Caitlin Grace McDonnell, Paco Márquez, Holly Mitchell, Sarah Sala, Sanj Nair, and Yanyi.

Marty Correia’s work has appeared in The Mailer Review, FUSE, Punk Soul Poet, Lady Business (Sibling Rivalry Press) and Flock. The New York Department of Cultural Affairs and Venus Biennale funded Marty to produce the reading series A Tribe Called Butch. Correia has worked a steady union job for the past twelve years while writing poetry, short stories and her first book, Bridgeport Con. Marty earned her MFA in Creative Writing at New York University and is now represented by Ellen Geiger at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency. Marty has lived in the East Village with her spouse Kate Conroy since 1996.

Caitlin Grace McDonnell was a New York Times Fellow in poetry at NYU and has received fellowships from Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her poems and essays have been published widely, most recently in Salon, and she has two published books of poems, Dreaming the Tree (belladonna 2003) and Looking for Small Animals (2012). Currently, she’s an English teacher and lives in Brooklyn with her six-year-old daughter, Kaya Hope.

Paco Márquez is author of the chapbook Portraits in G Minor (Folded Word Press, 2017). His work has appeared in Apogee,Ostrich Review, Live Mag! and Huizache, among others. As Spanish Editor for William O’Daly, he assisted in translating Pablo Neruda’s initial book, Crepusculario, for the first time into English, Book of Twilight, (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). One of his poems went up on a public mural through Sacramento’s Del Paso Words & Walls Project. His work has been supported by New York University, The Center for Book Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Originally from México and Northern California, Paco lives in New York City with his partner of 12 years.

Holly Mitchell is a poet from Kentucky. A winner of an Amy Award from Poets & Writers and a Gertrude Claytor Prize from the Academy of American Poets, she earned an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and a BA in English from Mount Holyoke College. Her manuscript Farm Centos was a finalist for the 2017 Atlas Review Chapbook Series, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Baltimore Review, Juked, Narrative Magazine, and Paperbag, among other journals.

Sarah Sala’s debut poetry collection, Devil’s Lake, was a finalist for the 2017 Subito Press Book Prize, and her chapbook The Ghost Assembly Line was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. Her poem Hydrogen was featured in the Elements episode of NPR’s hit show Radiolab in collaboration with Emotive Fruition. Sarah is the series facilitator for Office Hours, a free poetry workshop for adjunct instructors and co-produces AmpLit Fest with Lamprophonic and Summer on the Hudson. Her poems appear in Atlas Review, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and Poetry Ireland Review, among others. Visit her at SarahSala.com.

Sanj Nair writes, paints and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter. Previously work has appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review and Fence Magazine and she has work forthcoming in JuxtaProse Literary Magazine and The Equalizer, the former including a piece written in a new form she’s worked out. Part of a performative series in New York City called Emofru, she’s also written The Lady Apple, a collaboration between poet and composer that’s performed at Tribeca’s Flea Theater as well as featured on NPR’s Soundcheck. Currently on Sabbatical, she’s a full-time professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice with CUNY.

Yanyi is the recipient of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize in Poetry, awarded by Carl Philips, and his first book, THE YEAR OF BLUE WATER, will be published by Yale University Press in 2019. He is a 2017-2018 Asian American Writers Workshop Margins Fellow and associate editor at Foundry. The recipient of a 2015 Emerging Poets Fellowship from Poets House, Yanyi’s poems and criticism have recently appeared in The Margins, Memorious, and Model View Culture.

TELL 43: Higher Learning
2018-04-14 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Higher Learning is the theme for the 43rd installment of TELL. Featuring Jude Dry, Jimena Lucero, Mindy Raf, and Pauline Park.
$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at BGSQD. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

Jude Dry is a writer and performer living in Brooklyn by way of Vermont. By day, Jude writes about queer film for IndieWire. By night, they ponder the meaning of a life well lived. Jude is currently single.

Jimena Lucero is a poet and activist born and raised in NYC. She was a 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee.
She is co-organizer of the TransisMagick Collective which pushes for trans liberation through art & community building. Jimena’s work appears in EOAGH and Blueshift Journal.

Mindy Raf is a comedian, actress, writer and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. Mindy has contributed to MTV’s GIRL CODE, COLLEGEHUMOR, TNT, VH1, The Daily Comedy Network, and the MY PARENTS WERE AWESOME anthology. Mindy’s debut young adult novel The Symptoms of My Insanity (DIAL/Penguin) is out now. Her critically acclaimed solo comedy show NOT THE ONE: a love story was named an “LBGT Best Bet by Time OutNew York, “hilariously quirky” by Theatre Is Easy, “Barrier Breaking” by The Edinburgh Reporter, and “cheeky and infectious” by Ed Fest Magazine. Recently debuting Off Broadway at 59e59 Theatre and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it is now playing monthly in NYC at Theaterlab: next show April 18. For more info please visit: mindyraf.com

Pauline Park (paulinepark.com) is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), which she co-founded in 1998, and president of the board of directors of Queens Pride House, which she co-founded in 1997. Pauline also co-founded the Out People of Color Political Action Club, the first political club by and for LGBT people of color in New York City, which she co-founded in 2001, serving as co-president of the club from 2007-2010. And she co-founded Iban/Queer Koreans of New York in 1997, which she served as coordinator of from 1997-1999. Pauline led the campaign for passage of the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002. In 2005, she became the first openly transgendered grand marshal of the New York City Pride March. Pauline participated in the first US LGBTQ delegation tour of Palestine in 2012 and was the keynote speaker at the Queer Korea Festival/Seoul Pride Parade, the largest event in the history of the LGBT community of Korea up until that point. Pauline did her B.A. in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, her M.Sc. in European Studies at the London School of Economics and her Ph.D. in political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana.

An Evening at The Mudd Club with Richard Boch
2018-04-12 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Richard Boch, the author, is an artist who was the doorman of the legendary, New York City club. The place was more than just a venue for bands, it was a true ‘club’ for artists of all disciplines, and the relationships and collaborations made then still bear fruit today. Though it lasted only from 1978 to 1983, its influence is pervasive-it was, essentially, the birthplace of the Eighties.

Keith Haring was in charge of the ‘gallery.’ Anna Sui debuted her designs there. The Talking Heads, and other seminal no wave/new wave bands found their start at the Mudd Club.

Fab Five Freddy (Fred Braithwaite) said this about Richard and The Mudd Club: “More than the well-known doorman of the Mudd Club, Richard Boch played a pivotal role in why it was the coolest club in the world back then. Richard was the crowd curator, carefully only letting in the right mix of the wildly creative downtown movers and shakers who made it our hangout, leaving the squares and the unhip outside in the cold. Richard is now letting everyone into the Mudd Club by way of this well-written book that details the who’s who and all the fun we had while infiltrating, changing and disrupting pop culture.”

The Mudd Club is filled with anecdotes about and memories of coming to terms with sexuality, drugs, and how one becomes an artist in a time and place that is overripe with creative energy. Richard’s stories are personal yet are populated by the now famous (and infamous) denizens of New York’s artistic community.

Richard Boch will be introduced by Marc Jacobs.

Copies of The Mudd Club are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Author photograph by Kate Simon.

Recent pieces about The Mudd Club:

NY Times- “A vivid tell-all”

Dazed & Confused

Bust Magazine- “The Mudd Club comes to life in a fascinating tell-all memoir.”

Merry Jane Magazine- “The book is a thing of wonder — funny, ferocious, masterfully written and assembled.”

Richard Boch is an artist, writer and lifelong New Yorker. He was born in Brooklyn, grew up on Long Island and studied printmaking and painting at The University of Connecticut and the Parsons New School for Design.

In 2016 Boch narrated a slide presentation at HOWL Projects related to the New York club scene. Recent exhibitions of his work include a group show at McDaris Fine Art, a suite of multimedia prints titled A Throwback Thrown Forward, and a series of “Page Paintings” as part of No Wave Heroes. He was interviewed and quoted at length for High On Rebellion, the story of Max’s Kansas City by Yvonne Sewall Ruskin, New York in The 70s by Allan Tannenbaum, Edgewise: A Picture of Cookie Mueller by Chloé Griffin, Born This Way, the story of Gia Carrangi by Sacha Lanvin Baumann and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor by Tim Lawrence. In addition Boch is currently editing Bobby Grossman’s Low Fidelity: Still Photographs 1975 – 1983 and recently contributed a sidebar to Tannenbaum’s Grit and Glamour. In November 2015 he served on the host committee of the Mudd Club Rummage Sale Benefitting the Bowery Mission, the first Mudd-related event in over thirty years. The New York Times referred to Boch as making “live or die decisions” as the club’s “longtime alpha doorman.”

Book Launch: Martin Duberman’s The Rest of It: Hustlers, Cocaine, Depression, and Then Some, 1976–1988, with Larry Mass
2018-04-07 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join us for the launch of Martin Duberman’s The Rest of It: Hustlers, Cocaine, Depression, and Then Some, 1976–1988 (Duke University Press, March 2018). Following Duberman’s reading, he will be joined in conversation by Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) co-founder Larry Mass.

Copies of The Rest of It will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

For many, the death of a parent marks a low point in their personal lives. For Martin Duberman—a major historian and a founding figure in the history of gay and lesbian studies—the death of his mother was just the beginning of what became a twelve-year period filled with despair, drug addiction, and debauchery. From his cocaine use, massive heart attack, and immersion into New York’s gay hustler scene to experiencing near-suicidal depression and attending rehab, The Rest of It is the previously untold and revealing story of how Duberman managed to survive his turbulent personal life while still playing leading roles in the gay community and the academy.

Despite the hardships, Duberman managed to be incredibly productive: he wrote his biography of Paul Robeson, rededicated himself to teaching, wrote plays, and coedited the prize-winning Hidden from History. His exploration of new paths of scholarship culminated in his founding of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, thereby inaugurating a new academic discipline. At the outset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic Duberman increased his political activism, and in these pages he also describes the tensions between the New Left and gay organizers, as well as the profound homophobia that created the conditions for queer radical activism. Filled with gossip, featuring cameo appearances by luminaries such as Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Vivian Gornick, Susan Brownmiller, Kate Millett, and Néstor Almendros, among many others, and most importantly, written with an unflinching and fearless honesty, The Rest of It provides scathing insights into a troubling decade of both personal and political history. It is a stimulating look into a key period of Duberman’s life, which until now had been too painful to share.

To read Larry Mass’s review of The Rest of It click here.

Martin Duberman is Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus, at City University of New York, where he founded and directed the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies. He is the author of numerous histories, biographies, memoirs, essays, plays, and novels, which include Cures: A Gay Man’s Odyssey; Paul Robeson; Stonewall; Midlife Queer: Autobiography of a Decade, 1971–1981; Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community; The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein; Jews/Queers/Germans; and more than a dozen others. His biography of Charles Francis Adams won the Bancroft Prize, and his coedited anthology Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past won two Lambda Literary Awards. He won a third Lambda Award for Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS. Duberman received the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Historical Association, as well as two honorary degrees: Doctor of Humane Letters from Amherst College, and Doctor of Letters from Columbia University. He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Duberman lives in New York City.

Lawrence D. Mass, M.D., wrote the first press reports on AIDS and is a co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis. He is the author-editor of Dialogues of The Sexual Revolution, Volumes I and 2; We Must Love One Another or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer; and a memoir, Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite: Being Gay and Jewish in America. His reviews and essays, and sequences of On the Future of Wagnerism, his in-progress sequel to Confessions, have appeared on Huffington Post.

Author Reading: Richard A. McKay's Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic, with Sarah Schulman
2018-04-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Please join Richard A. McKay, author of Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic, for a reading, followed by a conversation led by Sarah Schulman.

The search for a “Patient Zero”—popularly understood to be an epidemic’s first infected case—has been key to media coverage of major infectious disease outbreaks for more than three decades. Yet the term itself did not exist before the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. How did this idea so swiftly exert a strong grip on the popular consciousness? In Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic, Richard A. McKay demonstrates how this seemingly new concept drew upon centuries-old ideas—and fears—about contagion and social disorder.

McKay presents a carefully documented account of the life of Gaétan Dugas, a gay man whose skin cancer diagnosis in 1980 took on very different meanings as the epidemic developed and who gained widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as Patient Zero of the North American outbreak. McKay shows how public health investigators inadvertently created the term amid their early research into the emerging health crisis; how an ambitious journalist dramatically amplified the idea in his determination to reframe national debates about AIDS; and how many individuals grappled with the notion of Patient Zero—adopting, challenging, and redirecting its powerful meanings—as they tried to make sense of and respond to the first fifteen years of an unfolding epidemic in Canada and the United States. With important insights for our interconnected age, Patient Zero untangles the complex process by which individuals and groups create meaning and allocate blame when faced with new disease threats.

Copies of Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Richard A. McKay is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. His research has been published in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine and in Nature, and he is currently investigating the pre-AIDS history of sexual health and illness among gay men, other men who have sex with men, and trans people (https://www.beforehiv.hps.cam.ac.uk/share). Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic is his first book and has been nominated for the Publishing Triangle’s Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction. He lives in London, where he also works as a coach for academics, writers, and other creative thinkers.

Sarah Schulman’s work spans novels, plays, journalism, and nonfiction. She is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the College of Staten Island. Some of her recent works include the movie United in Anger: A History of ACT UP, and the nonfiction work Conflict is not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair. Her 19th book, Maggie Terry, a novel of murder and intrigues, will be published in September, 2018 by The Feminist Press. This year she was awarded the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement.

NYC Queer Comic Fair 2018
2018-04-01 13:00 - 19:00, 2018-03-31 13:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
What is it: The NYC Queer Comic Fair the only fair in NYC geared entirely towards queer sequential art (comics, graphic novels, illustrated stories, photo-comics, or any other interesting take on the medium of still-visual narrative storytelling). The event is organized by WabiSabiZinez and Carmine Street Comics and hosted by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division . This year we are expanding to a two day event!
When is it: The event will be hosted by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division on Saturday, March 31st and Sunday, April 1st from 1-7pm each day.
Organizers:

• WabiSabiZinez – https://wabisabizinez.storenvy.com/
• Carmine Street Comics – https://www.carminestreetcomics.com/
• Comics by Patrick – https://comicsbypatrick.com/

Vendors:

• Adam David Bencomo – https://adamdavidbencomo.format.com/homepage
• Carlos Quispe – https://www.uranuscomics.tumblr.com/
• Doable Guys – https://www.instagram.com/doableguys/
• Drake Rogers – https://www.instagram.com/parisisburning_portraits/
• Granny Geek
• j______johnson – https://www.instagram.com/j______johnson
• Jean-Sebastien Coles – https://www.madeinbabas.com
• John Jenson – https://johnjennison.wixsite.com/illustration
• Khaleel – thisnumberisinvalid.tumblr.com
• Kyle’s Bed and Breakfast – https://kylesbnb.blogspot.com/
• luke kurtis – https://www.bd-studios.com/
• Lucky Sanford – https://www.instagram.com/luckysanford/
• Preternatch – https://preternatch.deviantart.com/gallery/
• Susse Soenderby Jensen – https://unteleported-tomatoes.net/
• SciFi Explosion – https://www.facebook.com/scifiexplosion/
• Square Bears – https://www.instagram.com/squarebears/
• #udonthave2banancy – https://www.instagram.com/stephenanton/
• Valmontgod – https://shipjumpercomic.com

Affirmative Laughter
2018-03-30 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Host Elsa Waithe brings some of NYC’s funniest non-straight non-White non-cis male comedians together for a night dedicated to diversity and hilarity.
The Bureau hosts Affirmative Laughter on the last Friday of every month.

The March 30th edition will feature:
Ashley Gavin
Sam Jay
Drae Campbell
Zilla Vodnas
Vivianne A. Njoku

Leather and Lust
2018-03-29 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Leather and Lust – Come One, Come All To An Evening Of Literature with Sassafras Lowrey, Laura Antoniou, D.L. King, and Nairne Holtz.

Sassafras Lowrey is a teenage runaway who grew up to become the 2013 winner of the Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Award. Hir books—Lost Boi, A Little Queermas Carol, Roving Pack, Kicked Out and Leather Ever After—have been honored by organizations ranging from the National Leather Association to the American Library Association. Sassafras lives and writes in Brooklyn with hir partner, and their menagerie of dogs and cats. Learn more at www.SassafrasLowrey.com

Proud member of the Middle Aged Guard, Laura Antoniou has been writing erotica for over twenty-five years. Best known for her Marketplace series of erotic novels about a realistic slave training society. The 6th book, The Inheritor, was launched with an enormously successful Kickstarter featuring a limited leather-bound edition. The second volume of fan fiction set in the Marketplace world is due out in 2018. She has also edited and appeared in many anthologies, including Best Lesbian Erotica 2015, and is the author of Rainbow Award winning comedy kinky mystery, The Killer Wore Leather. Her website is LAntoniou.com; follow her on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

D. L. King (dlkingerotica.blogspot.com) has a literary-minded cat who begs for her 9:00 treats from about 8pm, on. However, while other cats like to sit on keyboards and sleaze their way in front of your monitor, Batgirl knows how important the work of writing and editing is and refuses to bother her during those times. (No, really, it’s true.) She must be a very patient cat as D. L. is almost always at the computer. D. L. King is the editor of fourteen anthologies, including a Lambda Literary Award Winner, The Harder She Comes: Butch/Femme Erotica, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica and five Independent Publisher Medalists, (two gold and three silver) Carnal Machines: Steampunk Erotica, The Harder She Comes: Butch/Femme Erotica, Under Her Thumb: Erotic Stories of Female Domination, The Big Book of Domination: Erotic Fantasies and Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 1. Her short stories have been published in close to a hundred anthologies, including six volumes of Best Lesbian Erotica, as well as titles such as Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, Girl Crazy: Coming Out Erotica, and Girl Fever: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex for Lesbians. D. L. King is also the editor of She Who Must Be Obeyed: Femme Dominant Lesbian Erotica. She has a couple of novels and a few novellas in print, as well as a collection of 21 of her own favorite femdom short stories.

Nairne Holtz began her writing career in the early 90s with the creation of a pansexual queer porn zine, Pornorama, that generated reviews and sales from around the world. A straight couple who ran a fetish group offered to back her financially and elevate Pornorama to magazine status. She pooh-poohed this offer she didn’t think was terribly practical: “Thanks, that’s sweet, but I’m going to library school.”
Today she manages a law library and is the author of several works of fiction. The Skin Beneath (Insomniac, 2007), was shortlisted for Quebec’s McAuslan Prize (rather respectable) and won the Alice B. Award for Debut Lesbian Fiction (she hadn’t heard of this award either until she received an email informing her she had won it). This One’s Going to Last Forever (Insomniac, 2009), was a Lambda Literary Award finalist (terribly thrilling). Her new novel, Femme Confidential, will be out in the fall of 2017.

Book Launch: Tadzio Koelb's Trenton Makes with Vincent Virga
2018-03-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Please join Tadzio Koelb, author of TRENTON MAKES for a reading and conversation led by Vincent Virga.

A vivid, brutal, razor-sharp debut about a woman who carves out her share of the American Dream by living as a man.

1946: At the apogee of the American Century, the confidence inspired by victory in World War II has spawned a culture of suffocating conformity in thrall to the cult of masculine privilege.

In the hardscrabble industrial city of Trenton, New Jersey, a woman made strong by wartime factory work kills her army veteran husband in a domestic brawl, disposes of his body, and assumes his identity. As Abe Kunstler, he secures a job in a wire rope factory, buys a car, and successfully woos Inez, an alcoholic dime dancer. He makes a home with her, but for Abe, this is not enough: to complete his transformation, he needs a son.

1971: A very different war is under way. The certainties of mid-century triumphalism are a distant, bitter memory, and Trenton’s heyday as a factory town is long past. As the sign on the famous bridge says, “Trenton Makes, the World Takes.”

The family life Abe has so carefully constructed is crumbling under the intolerable pressures of his long ruse. Desperate to hold on to what he has left, Abe searches for solutions in the dying city.

Written in brilliantly stylized prose, this gripping narrative is a provocative and incisive exploration of the nature of identity, and a disturbing portrait of desperation. Tadzio Koelb has crafted a slim gut shot of a novel that heralds the arrival of a writer of startling talent and imagination.

Copies of Trenton Makes are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

TADZIO KOELB is a graduate of the prestigious writing program at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. He has translated André Gide’s work, and is an active reviewer and essayist for a variety of publications that include The New York Times and The Times Literary Supplement. He teaches writing at Rutgers University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

VINCENT VIRGA is the author of GAYWYCK, the first gay Gothic written to show that genres have no gender. He is the author of several novels and 28 non-fiction books. He is also a picture editor of 163 books, his latest is BOBBY KENNEDY by Chris Matthews.

Pushing the Limits: Ana Simo and Sarah Schulman in Conversation
2018-03-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Authors, activists, and co-founders of the Lesbian Avengers, Sarah Schulman talks with Ana Simo about her provocative first novel, Heartland, and much more.

Copies of Ana Simo’s Heartland (Restless Books, 2018) are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Ana Simo is the author of a dozen plays, a short feature film, and countless articles. HEARTLAND, her debut novel, is an uproarious, word-drunk romp through an alternate, pre-apocalyptic United States that blends elements of telenovela, pulp noir, and dystopian satire. A New Yorker most of her life, she came of age in a Cuba where a revolution’s sense of endless freedom was almost immediately replaced by iron-fisted censorship and rabidly homophobic witch-hunts that jailed or institutionalized LGBT people, forcing her and others to flee.

Sarah Schulman‘s work spans novels, plays, journalism, and nonfiction. She is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the College of Staten Island. Some of her recent works include the movie United in Anger: A History of ACT UP, and the nonfiction work Conflict is not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair. Her 19th book, MAGGIE TERRY, a novel of murder and intrigues, will be published in September, 2018 by The Feminist Press.

Opening reception for No Reason To Be Careful: A Solo Exhibition by Marco DaSilva
2018-03-23 18:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Please join us for the opening reception of Marco DaSilva‘s solo exhibition No Reason To Be Careful on Friday, March 23, from 6 to 9 PM.
No Reason To Be Careful will remain on view at the Bureau through June 10.

Marco DaSilva has developed a meticulous process of painting that was born after his manic episode in 2013. Applying house paint, limited color and sharpie markers through a pop context to canvas and other surfaces, this culmination of work evokes the duality of heaven and hell, deconstructing his lived experience during this era of his life. He provides a richly saturated landscape of his own world to the viewer and creates his own mythology in the process. Marco will be displaying MY QUAINT STRUGGLE a book of manic poetry and photographs alongside his paintings as well as SELFIE TABLEAU a book of collages that explore the idea of the ‘selfie’ as a contemporary self portrait.

Marco DaSilva is an artist born and raised in New York City. He holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from SUNY New Paltz and currently maintains a studio practice in Bedford- Stuyvesant. He creates his own symbology through his paintings and drawings which explore the notions of duality through the intersections of his multi racial queer experience. He has exhibited his work at IMAGE Gallery, Heath Gallery and The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art among others. He was an NYFA Artist as Entrepreneur Fellow and is currently a Visual Arts fellow for Queer Art Mentorship’s 2017-2018 cycle. https://marcodasilva.net/

Curating Arts and Public Health with South African Curatorial Resident MC Roodt
2018-03-22 19:00 - 20:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Visual AIDS’ sixth annual Curatorial Resident, MC Roodt, will present a culminating talk reflecting on his work in South Africa and his research in New York City, followed by a conversation with South African photographer Pippa Hetherington and public health scholar Ian Bradley-Perrin. MC has spent the month of March conducting research in Visual AIDS’ archives and activating our community through dialogues and studio visits. He works and lives in Bloemfontein, South Africa, a region particularly marked by the devastating effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic: 14% of the population in his hometown are living with HIV.
As part of his Curatorial Residency with Visual AIDS, MC is currently developing a transnational exhibition project that will be presented in South Africa at the Free States Arts Festival as well as on Visual AIDS’ website. MC will also discuss the Arts & Health Project Design Strategies workshop he will facilitate during his residency. Blending the disciplines and practices of community arts and community health, the workshop introduces participants to the design of public Arts & Health projects. Artists and community health practitioners will come together to demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary perspectives and partnerships in the realization of creative public health aspirations.

MC Roodt is an HIV-positive arts practicioner, writer and artist from Bloemfontein, South Africa. MC is the Arts & Health chair at the Public Health Association of South Africa and the Programme Director of Free State Arts & Health. He is a founding member of the gRRR Kollective—an intermedia arts collective—and has curated several exhibitions in South Africa. He frequently contributes as an arts writer on various platforms and is an activist for LGBTQIA rights in South Africa. To read more about MC’s work, see his introductory post on the Visual AIDS blog.

Pippa Hetherington is currently enrolled in the ICP-Bard MFA program, graduating in 2019. Pippa has been involved with Visual AIDS through the LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN initiative and has been assisting MC during his residency. Pippa’s work is heavily influenced by travels through Africa and her fifteen years of photographic work in the social development sector of Southern Africa. She is passionate about supporting projects in the civil society space and values the need for supporting the meeting point of art and HIV and AIDS.

Ian Bradley-Perrin is a PhD student in Sociomedical Science at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He is a fellow at the Lehman Center for American History, The Columbia Population Research Center and the Social Science and Research Council of Canada. His research focuses on the intersection of activism, the pharmaceutical industry, advertising and marketing, and public health. He has been an activist on HIV criminalization, needle exchange and harm reduction practices and vocal on distortions in the historiography of HIV/AIDS. He has also been an activist on campus organizing graduate workers to form a union and serving on Graduate Workers of Columbia bargaining committee.

Visual AIDS’ Curatorial Residency program is made possible through a collaboration with Residency Unlimited. Launched in 2012, the program offers a one-month residency for a curator, art historian, or arts writer interested in the intersection of visual art and HIV/AIDS. The curatorial residency encourages the development of exhibitions, programs, and scholarship about HIV/AIDS and contemporary art.

Pop Gym Pop Up: Free Self-Defense Workshop at the Bureau
2018-03-14 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Palm Heels for the people! Don’t get that joke? No worries! Come by this FREE Pop Up workshop to learn some introductory skills that will keep you feeling safe. We’ll be covering the basics: stretching, conditioning, technique, and theory, with the hope that participants will leave with some super useful foundations that will aid them in the day-to-day. Mix that in with some sweat and some movement, and you’ll have an accessible and confidence-boosting good time for all. Whether you are a beginner, or someone with experience, come work it out with us!
Open to all ages! We’ll be moving around, so participants should wear clothing in which they are comfortable stretching and sweating.
#POPGym is a new project, working towards opening a physical space in Brooklyn that offers free self-defense, fitness, and skill share classes 7 days a week. As we continue planning, we invite you to come by any of our events this summer! Our workshops have been described as, “fun”, “holistic” and “empowering”, and for any questions, comments, or inquiries for future workshops for you or your organizations, email us at info@popgym.org #popup

Joe Ovelman’s Affair W/ a Married Man
2018-03-11 14:00 - 16:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Book Launch “Pictures and Words” 2018

On Sunday, March 11th at 2:00 PM, celebrate with Joe Ovelman and the Bureau as we launch his new book, “Pictures and Words: The Sun Rises in the West and the Sun Sets in the East,” STH Editions, 2018. Rollick along with this sweet, sad, funny account of an all-too familiar romance. Ovelman will read from his book; a short Q&A will follow. You’ll want to come and get your signed copy!

$10 suggested donation to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Joe Ovelman lives and works in Philadelphia and New York City.
https://www.joeovelman.com/portfolios/1805/works/46918

Follow @joeovelman https://www.instagram.com/joeovelman/
https://www.connersmith.us.com/artists/joe-ovelman

TELL 42: Pets
2018-03-10 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Pets is the theme for the 42nd installment of TELL. Featuring Memphis, Kelli Dunham, Jesse Glasgow, and Pooya Mohseni.
$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at BGSQD. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

Memphis is an Italian Greyhound mix and possibly a “Carolina Dog” from Tennessee. She is a great hunter and lives with her human, Drae, in Brooklyn. She is working on an autobiography about her life. Working title; Dramatic Paws, A Southern Gal in Brooklyn. Her first novel, “Chicken Bone Reality” is currently out of print.

Kelli Dunham is the ex-nun genderqueer nurse author storytelling nerd comic so common in modern Brooklyn. Kelli has appeared on Showtime and the Discovery Channel, the Cinderblock Comedy Festival, the Queerly Festival, Solocom, the Gotham Storytelling Festival, and nationwide at colleges, prides, fundraisers and even the occasional livestock auction. She is also the co-founder and producer of Queer Memoir and Organ Recital: A Festival of Stories About Bodies, Health & Healthcare. Kelli is the author of seven books of humorous non-fiction, including two children’s books inexplicably being used by Sonlight conservative home schooling association in their science curriculum and Freak of Nurture, a collection of humorous essays published by Topside Press. She is currently working on a slightly ludicrous self help book tentatively titled: “Shit This Hurts: An Irreverent Guide to Grief.”

Jesse Glasgow is an actor, writer, runner, and some other things too. She lives in Brooklyn with her wife, dogs, cat, and extensive collection of pants. She believes in you. And magic.

Pooya Mohseni is an Iranian/American actor, Transgender activist and writer.
Pooya appeared in an award winning one woman show, titled “One Woman”, in United Solo Festival at The Theatre Row, written by Cecilia Copeland & directed by Joan Kane. Her other recent stage performances include “The Good Muslim” by Zakiyyah Alexander, directed by William Carden at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage’s “The White Snake”, directed by Natsu Onoda Power, Madame in The OUTLIERS’ production of “The Maids” directed by Ben Gunderson and the title role in “Death of a Persian Prince” at NYMITF & SAIPAF, directed by Dewey Moss.
She’s a recurring guest star on the new crime drama “Big Dogs” produced by Choice Films & Theatricals, directed by Mathew Penn and Tony Glazer, to be released in 2018. She’s also a recurring guest star in the first season of the USA network’s “Falling Water”.
Follow @Pooyaland on Twitter/Instagram

CopWatch Training
2018-03-10 16:00 - 17:30
CopWatch is an effective and legal tool for empowering communities, ending police misconduct, unprofessional behavior, and discrimination. You have the right to observe and record all police activities in public places. Learn how to exercise your rights safely and legally. Workshop will be taught by comedian and activist Elsa Waithe. Suggested donation of $5 to $10, but no one will be turned away.

Spread the word!!!

Please note: The Bureau will be closed during the workshop (4 to 5:30 PM)

“What to do if you’re stopped by the police”: a handy guide from the New York Civil Liberties Union. Print it out. Share it widely. Keep it with you. And you can find other “know your rights” cards (in English and Spanish) here.

Canceled due to storm! OLNY Poly Movie Night: Mediterranean Food
2018-03-07 18:30 - 21:30
Hi all, The Center is closing at 4 PM today due to the coming storm. The Bureau will not be open today. Stay warm! Stay safe!
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Please join us for Mediterranean Food/Dieta Mediterránea (2009), directed by Joaquín Oristrell and starring Olivia Molina, Paco León, and Alfonso Bassave.
We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.
Synopsis: In this Spanish romantic comedy, Sofía, Toni, and Frank grow up together in a seaside village. While Frank encourages Sofía’s ambition to be a world-famous chef, she is also drawn to Toni’s vision of traditional family life. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.

Confront White Womanhood
2018-03-04 13:30 - 16:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
All tickets for this workshop have sold!! Thank you all for your enthusiastic interest in this workshop. We will have approximately 5-10 tickets available at the door. So if you did not buy in advance, come early and we can take the first 5-10 folks! See you on March 4th!!
Follow this link: https://eepurl.com/dkFZyr to sign up for our mailing list and stay up to date on future workshops.

For centuries, violence has been done in the name of—and even physically enacted by—white women. By examining historical contexts in conjunction with personal story-sharing exercises, we confront how white supremacy shows up in our own behavior. Through vulnerable discussions about individual complicity, we empower attendees to disrupt white supremacy from within their own communities.
Organizers Sophie Ellman-Golan, Rhiannon Childs, and Heather Marie Scholl (two white women and one Black woman) designed the Confront White Womanhood workshop to interrogate the ways white supremacy manifests within feminist spaces.
At this session, we will be joined by Jewel Cadet from BYP100. We will focus on the white history of feminism and the ways efforts for white female empowerment have harmed People of Color. Attendees will leave with an understanding of how white women can take tangible steps to interrupt our own racial biases and confront the ways we cause harm. We believe that white women can be better accomplices in the fight for freedom and are committed to helping them embody that change
Tickets are $20.
Partial ticket proceeds will be donated to BYP100 NYC, additional donations will be collected during the workshop.
Purchase tickets here.
BYP100 is a national, member-based organization of Black 18-35 year old activists and organizers, dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. We do this through building a network focused on transformative leadership development, direct action organizing, advocacy, and political education using a Black queer feminist lens. Donations will specifically benefit the NYC chapter which has done educational actions about Marion Sims, Swipe It Forward, Anti-Columbus day tours, and HOME (Housing Over Monitoring and Evictions) campaign.
For additional information on operating principles please visit www.ConfrontWhiteWomanhood.com
Please note that the Bureau will not be open to the general public during the workshop.

Tina Alexis Allen presents her memoir Hiding Out
2018-03-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join author Tina Alexis Allen for a reading from her new book Hiding Out: A Memoir of Drugs, Deception, and Double Lives.

Tina Alexis Allen is a GLAAD Award-nominated actress, producer, scriptwriter and playwright. Allen was a cast member of the TV series Outsiders (WGN America), and co-starred in the feature films Moving Mountains (2014), Tom’s Dilemma (2016), as well as the web-series Looking for Kathleen. Allen is also the co-founder of Gina Raphaela Jewelry’s mission-driven No More Violence collection.

Copies of Hiding Out are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Elsa & Wanjiko Do Half Hours
2018-03-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Your 2 favorite Black lesbians, Elsa Waithe and Wanjiko Eke are recording 30mins sets. Come support and put your laughter in the space. Hosted by Jes Tom.

Proximity: Words + Visions
2018-03-01 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Proximity: Words + Visions gathers poets, performance artists, & scholars sharing work focused on bodies, unravelings, de/stabilizations, intersections, mis/communications, & the mutability of binaries & borders. Hang out & bring all your selves.
Featuring:
Chia-Lun Chang, Miguel Gutierrez, Tiara Roxanne, and xtian w.
Reception: 7:00
Event: 7:30
Suggested Donation: $10, but no one turned away for lack of funds!

Chia-Lun Chang is the author of One Day We Become Whites (No, Dear/ Small Anchor Press, 2016). Recent work appears in Bettering American Poetry, PEN America, Hyperallergic, Literary Hub, MuseMedusa, Evergreen, 6×6, and The Tiny. She has received fellowships and support from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Tofte Lake Center, and Poets House. Born and raised in New Taipei City, Taiwan, she lives in New York City.

Miguel Gutierrez lives in Brooklyn where he writes, makes music and performances, and practices a form of bodywork called the Feldenkrais Method®. In addition to performing all over the godammn world, he’s read the text he’s written for his dance shows at the Poetry Project, People Herd, GUTS, Radar, and was in residence in 2012 at RadarLAB in Mexico. His writing has appeared in the Movement Research Journal, Emily Roysdon’s Uncounted, the “Tears” issue of handjob, the zin, and online in his blog about celebrities called Stargayze.com. His book of performance texts WHEN YOU RISE UP is available from 53rd State Press and he is at work on a second book of performance texts and essays called THE THINGS YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE. www.miguelgutierrez.org

Tiara Roxanne was born in a ghost town. She is a Berlin-based scholar and poet. She writes essays and poetry while engaging in theory and philosophy. She is currently researching intersections between the Indigenous body and Posthumanism. She was the recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston Award at Naropa University and has been featured in CA Conrad’s Jupiter 88, The Monster Issue of Gesture: A Literary Journal, Semicolon, Phlyogeny, Love Shuffle Review, Din Magazine, Interkors Magazine and Continent.

xtian w is a poet, essayist, performer, & city dweller. Their work appears/ is forthcoming in Bone Bouquet, Hematopoiesis Press, & Prelude, & they’ve made collaborative performances with friends. xtian is interested in trans everything.

Affirmative Laughter: Black Comedy Month
2018-02-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Host Elsa Waithe brings some of NYC’s funniest non-straight non-White non-cis male comedians together for a night dedicated to diversity and hilarity.
Featuring:
Dara Jemmott
Whitney Chanel Clark
Dave Lester
Chanel Ali

The Bureau hosts Affirmative Laughter on the last Friday of every month.

Duvet Day
2018-02-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join artist Mark John Smith for a walk-through of his solo exhibition Man Many Men, on view at the Bureau through March 18, and a book signing of the accompanying publication Blue Blue Balls.
*Bring a pen – this work needs defacing.
Snuggle down with Mark as we invite you to immerse yourself in the creation of new confessional and constructed narratives. Mark’s practice calls for your voice to be added to an ever evolving, collaborative tapestry as archive. There’s always a need for a ‘duvet day’.
Think Felix. Think Tracey. Think Robert.
They miss you.

Mark John Smith is a British artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and BA Hons Degrees in Fine Art and Art History from The University for the Creative Arts in the United Kingdom. Mark is a founding member of Franklin Collective and currently serves on the advisory board of Rutgers University’s Design Thinking program. Last year Mark exhibited with Franklin Collective at Petzel Gallery, Manhattan, NY in group show WE NEED TO TALK…. In November 2017, Mark launched JML50, The Reading Room 2017, and The Placards 2017, new publicly commissioned works currently on view at the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library. In mid-2018, a feature length documentary following his work on JML50 will be released.

TELL 41: Ghosts
2018-02-10 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Ghosts is the theme of the 41st installment of TELL. Featuring Moira Cutler, Mieke Dee, Lulwana Mulalu, and Dorian S.
$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at BGSQD. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

Moira Cutler has a lot of stories and has had more than her share of adventures. She’s travelled a bunch, done crazy things, and trusted many strangers. Moira has done a bunch of acting for Susana Cook and her own obscure little shows.

Mieke Dee

Lulwama Mulalu is a lover of words, a Pisces, a queer poet and singer-songwriter from the small county of Botswana, in Southern Africa. Her name means to make good and she believes that everything happens for a reason. Lulu is a senior currently studying Psychology and Drama, with voice somewhere in the eclectic mix at Bennington College, VT. She enjoys spelling colour with a U and is the biggest Ellen DeGeneres fan in the world. No really, it borders on being an obsession.

Dorian S. is an ex suburban teen who spends most of his time teaching yoga, reading, playing with cats, commuting, pondering US health care, and making playlists. He has always loved a good story and is just happy to be (here).”

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs
2018-02-07 18:30 - 21:30
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Please join us for Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs (2008), written by Matt Groening and directed by Peter Avanzino and starring Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, and Stephen Hawking.
We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The more people come, the more likely we’ll continue the event! The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.
Synopsis: 1000 years in the future, Philip J. Fry (originally from the year 1999 when he accidentally froze himself), feeling distraught after a break up with his polyamorous girlfriend, launches himself into the anomaly, a rip in the fabric of the universe. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Animated.

Homo GoGo Man: a fairytale about a boy who grew up in discoland
2018-01-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Author Christopher Duquette reads a chapter from Homo GoGo Man: a fairytale about a boy who grew up in discoland, a novel about club hopping in New York City from 1976 – 2004. Duquette will be accompanied by a DJ playing music relative to the hedonistic disco era that captivated and eventually devoured a curious and confused young man who had been fatally bitten by the disco bug, hoofing professionally and recreationally for thirty years of his adult life.

Born in 1958 like Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson (R.I.P.), Christopher Duquette was part of the X-gens who wanted the most out of life, regardless of the cost. Proving his emotionally and financially unsupportive parents wrong, he succeeded in completing a Master Degree in 5 years from Stony Brook University, found cache in the corporate world acquiring well paid employment to finance his hedonistic lifestyle until crashing and burning from too much of the above at age 44.

Affirmative Laughter Returns
2018-01-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Host Elsa Waithe is bringing some of NYC’s funniest non-straight non-White non-cis male comedians together for a night dedicated to diversity and hilarity.

This Month:
Jes Tom
Sydnee Washington
Wanjiko Eke
David Bradley Isenberg
+MORE!

The Bureau will host Affirmative Laughter on the last Friday of every month.
